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When I looked back on what I achieved last week it seemed like I hadn’t really done much family history, but this is because I still need to get away from the idea that I need to be adding names and dates to my family tree to be doing family history.

Last week I spent a lot of time, perhaps a bit too much, looking at Hatterells, West Grinstead, Sussex and it’s connection to my family history. This hasn’t added anything new to my family tree yet, ultimately the only thing that I am going to be adding to my family tree in relation to Hatterells are some address details for my grandmother and some of her children.

Whilst there are few hard facts to add to my family tree there is more background material that needs to be recorded, like the details from the rent book and there are a few more records that need checking, which might give me more information, but nothing that is going to fit neatly into my family tree.

So along with very little to add to my family tree I have also brought to the surface again a question which had been pushed to the back of my mind, every so often it comes to the front only to get pushed back again. I wonder if now is the time to tackle that question?

The question is why did my grandmother with her three children move from Hurstpierpoint, Sussex to West Grinstead, Sussex in 1943? There seems no clear reason why a mother with three young children and a husband serving overseas should move to an unfamiliar place, albeit not that far away, but still it would seem unnecessary upheaval unless there was a good reason.

Of course the reason it keeps getting pushed to the back of my mind is because it is probably an unanswerable question. Neither of my grandparents are alive to ask, and the three children were probably too young to remember the reason behind their move, if they were ever told in the first place.

For now I will just push that question back a little way in my mind, not right to the back, but just far enough not to fully occupy my thoughts, but not far enough to stop it being forgotten/ignored again.